


Want

by Miri1984



Series: What Makes Me Happy [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Almost smut, Angst, M/M, One-Shot, soldier ghost compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-03
Updated: 2014-06-03
Packaged: 2018-02-03 06:22:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1734296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miri1984/pseuds/Miri1984
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky looked at him. “You’re the dumbest guy I know, Steven Grant Rogers.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Want

The wanting is a problem. 

There had been so many years without it. With nothing except the satisfaction of a completed job. The knowledge that he could go back into the ice and forget. 

Now that the memories are returning, the wanting is coming back as well. 

But it’s hard. It’s hard to sort out what he’s allowed to want. Things are different. He can ask for a drink or an ice cream, can afford the more expensive shoes or the more comfortable chair. He doesn’t have to scrimp and save pennies any more, doesn’t have to worry about Steve not making it through the winter (he made it through the longest winter — they both did).

He remembers wanting to dance. Wanting to press against the walls of buildings and kiss. Remembers the feel of a woman under his hands, the joy of coaxing sounds of pleasure from himself and his partner. 

He remembers doing that with Natasha.

He doesn’t know if she remembers it as well. He suspects yes. He suspects she doesn’t want to ever talk about it again, which is fine by him, because the man who slept with her, the man who was allowed to go on long missions and train underlings, that man was wiped. He had been wiped when he’d met her. The man she said had been a “good” man had been an echo of who he really was, someone capable of death without remorse, killing without reason other than “this is what you were told”.

He cannot remember wanting Natasha, although now, when her eyes rest on him and he sees the pity in them, he thinks that perhaps she can remember wanting him.

Maybe, if they ever persuade him to finish the therapy and talk through all his problems and face his past head on, maybe he would find that place for Natasha again, but at the moment he is too mired in rejecting everything _that_ person did, wanting it out of his life forever even though it’s part of him and so. Natasha he can look at and not feel anything other than an objective appreciation and faint friendship. Admiration.

Steve though.

He can remember wanting Steve.

He can remember aching with the need for him to be safe and well, he can remember shivering with cold fear that nothing he did would ever be enough to make that so.

He can remember putting himself in danger and killing _for Steve_ which shouldn’t be any better, really, than killing for Hydra, except that he _trusted_ Steve and he knew that Steve would never ask him or expect him to do something wrong. Bucky would be the first to admit that he didn’t have much of a moral compass. That’s what Steve had been there for.

Except now that want had morphed into something else as well. 

***

He wakes screaming two nights out of three. Steve is always there before the world coalesces around him, talking soothingly. He used to do this for them, in the war, Bucky remembers that they shared a tent with Morita (who stuffed his ears with bits of paper and slept through it, or at least pretended to). They would sleep wrapped around each other for warmth and because the nightmares weren’t as bad when Steve was there, they never had been. 

Now though, Steve has his own room, his own bed, and Bucky can’t bring himself to say _stay_ because the Bucky Steve is comforting isn’t the Bucky who used to crack jokes and keep the bad guys off Steve, and the dreams aren’t of being tortured they are _of being the torturer._

“Hey,” Steve rubs his bare back with one hand, sitting on the bed. His hand is warm against Bucky’s skin, his eyes shadowed in the moonlight. Bucky doesn’t need to check his expression to know that his heart is breaking in that massive chest.

Every time he looks at him, Bucky can see the echo of who he wants him to be.

“I’m all right Steve,” Bucky says, but doesn’t throw the hand off, like he would normally. Tonight the simple touch is what he wants. It’s what he always wants — those casual brushes of Steve’s hand as they pass each other in the kitchen, the touch on his waist as he moves Bucky out of the way, a hand held out to him when he needs to stand up.

They’d sparred, once, in the training room, and Bucky had had to leave, because the physical contact had been too much. Steve had thought he’d hurt him. Steve had come running back to the apartment to find Bucky in the shower, shivering because he _still_ hadn’t worked out how to balance the hot and cold water — because cold had no meaning to him other than _peace_ and _rest_ and it didn’t occur to him that he was allowed to have warmth. Steve had reached over and adjusted it for him, getting wet and not caring and Bucky had wanted to curl in on himself in shame.

“Need to talk about it?” Steve asks. His hand is moving in slow circles on Bucky’s back and it’s all Bucky can do not to arch into it and purr like a cat.

“Nothing to tell,” he says shortly, then breathes in a shuddering breath that is half a sob and Steve’s breath hitches and he gets down on his knees in front of Bucky, hands holding his arms, looking up into Bucky’s face and there is _so much wrong with that_ it almost gives him the strength to pull away.

“You don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to Bucky,” Steve says. “But you need to talk to someone. I can ask Sam…”

Bucky shakes his head so vehemently that Steve frowns. “I don’t want to _talk_ about it Steve,” he says. “I don’t want. I don’t.”

He can’t.

His hands come up as though they’re being controlled by someone else and he cups Steve’s face in them. Steve is surprised, and a little frightened and Bucky almost cries again because _Steve thinks he might hurt him_ and Bucky knows if he did decide to snap Steve’s neck in his hands _Steve wouldn’t even flinch_ he would accept it and he doesn’t deserve this _he doesn’t deserve anything_ but he _wants so much._

He leans forward and kisses Steve on the lips.

Steve makes a surprised sound, but he doesn’t pull away. He does a lot less than pull away actually and Bucky can hardly believe it, but the hands that were resting on his slide upwards until one is tangled in his hair and the other is cupping the back of Bucky’s neck and Steve surges _forward_ and the kiss becomes… something different.

Bucky’s whole body sings for a few moments. He can feel every point of contact between them. His hands on Steve’s jaw, the metal one only aware of pressure but the other full of heat and skin and _Steve_ as he slides them down to Steve’s shirt, the metal one gripping it in a fist and the flesh one reaching down, trying to find skin, trying to fulfil the desperate need for _touch._ Steve has rocked up onto his knees and is kissing Bucky’s cheek and jaw, making small, hungry noises under his breath that are driving Bucky wild and it’s _so good_ and Bucky would be happy if they could do just this forever and ever and —

Steve breaks off, pulls away. He’s breathing like he’s run a marathon and his eyes are wide, pupils blown. _“Bucky,”_ he says.

Bucky has his mouth on Steve’s shoulder, breathing him in. “Yeah?”

Steve’s hands drop and he moves away and Bucky chases him with his lips for a second before he realises that Steve has stopped for a reason. A _Steve_ reason. “This isn’t a good idea,” he says.

Bucky raises an eyebrow and rakes his eyes downwards. “Looks like a good idea from where I’m sitting.”

Steve full body blushes and turns a little to hide himself, which has exactly the opposite effect. Bucky doesn’t reach out, but it’s hard to stop himself. 

“You’re — it’s not. You don’t.”

“Use your words, Steve,” Bucky says.

Steve shakes his head. “You’re in recovery,” he says. “You’re… there’s issues. Your memory hasn’t come back completely. You’re _fixating_ and — “

“Damn right,” Bucky says, leering even more and shifting forward. “Hard not to.”

“Bucky I don’t want to hurt you.”

_Touch me._

“You’re not hurting me. The opposite of that.”

Steve does that little shoulder slump he gets when he doesn’t want to do something but knows he has to and Bucky wants to scream in frustration. Instead he surges to his feet and crowds Steve against a wall, kissing his neck, touching his sides. “I want this, Steve.”

Steve groans. It’s abundantly clear that Steve wants this too, from the way he shivers when Bucky touches him, from the way he arches against him, but the damned fool pushes him back again. He can’t make him go all the way away, though, and he rests his forehead on Bucky’s breathing deeply.

“I want it too,” he says. “But you need to step away, Bucky. You need to take a big step backwards here.”

“Why?”

Steve takes his hands and leads him to the bed and they sit, and Bucky threads his fingers through Steve’s trying desperately to keep hold of the contact that he needs. Steve’s fingers on his are hot and they don’t pull away and Bucky just _needs to understand._

“Because I want this and I don’t know that you do.”

“Christ Steve, I just said I wanted it are you calling me a liar?”

Steve swallows and looks at Bucky under his lashes. “You never wanted it before.”

“What you’re gonna push me away now because we didn’t fuck when we were kids? Do you remember there was a war Steve? Do you remember _what my Dad would have said if we’d fucked on the floor of his house?”_

Steve winces and turns away. “It’s different, Bucky. Times are different. You’re different and _I’m_ different and sure back when we were kids this wouldn’t have been easy and it’s not gonna be easy now but I need to know that you wanting this — isn’t just — “

“Isn’t just what?”

“A way for you to hide.”

_“What?”_

“A way for you to stop trying to think about what happened to you. To stop dealing with it.”

Bucky shoves Steve back and stands up, heading for the kitchen, wanting _out_ now almost as much as he’d wanted Steve a few seconds ago. “Screw this.”

“Bucky!” Steve follows him to the kitchen, Bucky almost leaves the apartment altogether but he doesn’t have anything on but shorts and he doesn’t think Pepper and Tony are ready for a half naked, all the way aroused assassin to go wandering the corridors of Avengers Tower. “Bucky please don’t go.”

He leans on the kitchen counter, trying to breathe normally, not looking at Steve, not looking anywhere but down at his hands — one metal, one flesh.

“I’m never gonna _deal_ with it Steve. Seventy years of killing and torturing and being tortured isn’t something you _deal with_ okay? Didn’t Sam teach you anything?”

Steve stands across the counter from him, arms folded. Jaw of destiny has engaged.

“Sam told me I needed to be careful,” Steve said. “He said you’d think I expected you to be the person you were before the war. The Bucky I grew up with. I told him you haven’t been him since Azzano.”

Bucky snarled. _“Azzano_ was a fucking walk in the park Steve you can’t even begin to imagine what came after.”

“I don’t have to. I read the files.”

Bucky looked at him. “You’re the dumbest guy I know, Steven Grant Rogers.”

An eyebrow twitched. “And you took all the stupid with you.”

“I love you, okay? I’ve loved you since we were kids, and yeah it’s different and it was different then, but so am I and so are you and I just. I _want.”_ He stopped. “I’m allowed to want now. And I want you.”

Steve swallows and Bucky can see that he’s fighting with himself. “I’m not going to — “ he starts. Then he stops. “You’re allowed to want whatever you want, Bucky. I’m never going to try to stop you from that but it’s not just _you_ I’m protecting here.” Bucky blinks. “I’m not doing this casually, Bucky. I’m not just. Going to be. Something you _want.”_

“Did you fucking hear me say I love you?”

“I heard it.”

“So what, Steve? Do you just assume everything I say is a lie? Because that’s gonna get old real quick.”

Steve turns away. Bucky slams his hands on the counter and Steve turns back, that line is between his eyebrows again and his hands are spread. Open. Like a fucking book. So easy to read but impossible to understand.

“I want you to mean it and I can’t let myself believe it because if it’s not true I don’t think I — “

Bucky shakes his head. “Fuck. Steve. You’re a mess.” He goes to him. Takes one arm with his metal one, pulls Steve around so his face is close enough for Bucky to feel his breath.

There’s only a small height difference between them but Bucky gets the feeling that Steve wants to shrink — go back to being that skinny kid from Brooklyn. Bucky won’t lie. Part of him wishes they could go back there and start again, but knowing Steve, _really knowing him_ nothing would have changed. He’d do the same damned fool things he did the first time. “I’m a mess and you’re a mess and we were always a better mess together.” He cards one hand through Steve’s hair and Steve leans into it, eyes fluttering shut. They don’t _touch_ each other, these avengers and these modern people. It’s all words and kind deeds but Bucky can’t remember Stark or Thor or any of them actually _touching_ each other the way the Commandos had. As friends. As people who went through hell with each other and didn’t give a damn what people thought about that _meaning_ something.

He pulls Steve’s stupid face back down to his and kisses it again. 

Steve doesn’t pull away again, his arms come up and he holds onto Bucky like he can’t stay upright without him. They stumble backwards until Bucky is against the kitchen counter and Steve bends over him, tilting Bucky’s head up so he can kiss more deeply, hands moving in slow, soothing strokes up and down Bucky’s sides. Bucky lets himself melt against him, lets himself be moved around, doesn’t protest when Steve pulls back with one last, soft kiss on his jaw. “You want this,” Steve says. “I get that. I do too, okay? More than anything. But I’m kind of old fashioned, Bucky, and I want to go slow.”

Steve doesn’t let go of him, every part of Bucky’s body is pressed against the furnace of heat that is Steve Rogers and it’s _heaven_ and Steve doesn’t let go.

“How slow?”

Steve gives a little laugh, then kisses him again. “We can work it out.”

Bucky can work with that.

**Author's Note:**

> This is set post Soldier/Ghost and is TECHNICALLY in the same universe, and I kind of wanted to write it as a gift to everyone who has been following/leaving kudos and commenting on Soldier/Ghost because you guys have been really lovely.


End file.
